The government of the Canadian state of Ontario has come under fire for its plan to effectively monopolize the recreational cannabis trade by selling it through state-run shops and online. Ontario says it fears the legalization process will result in a thriving black market.

RT News

The government of the Canadian state of Ontario has come under fire for its plan to effectively monopolize the recreational cannabis trade by selling it through state-run shops and online. Ontario says it fears the legalization process will result in a thriving black market.

The new measures to prepare the state for the proposed Federal Cannabis Act, were announced at a news conference Friday by the territory’s Attorney General Yasir Naqvi, Finance Minister Charles Sousa and Health Minister Eric Hoskins.

At least 80 dispensaries will be opened by July 2019, with a total of 150 state-run stores expected to be operational by 2020 according to the plan. Online shopping will be available as well.

Proponents of the plan argue that having cannabis distributed by the government rather than through private retailers will keep the profit motive out of the equation and will avoid similar problems as those caused by big tobacco and alcohol.

According to the official press release, one of the stated aims of Ontario’s proposal is to squeeze out criminals from the black market, currently run by organizations such as the Hell’s Angels and the Italian Mafia as well as various aboriginal and immigrant street gangs.

“If you operate one of these facilities, consider yourself on notice,” Naqvi warned the illegal weed shops that have sprouted up across the province.

However, the scheme that drives out already existing private retailers that operate within the legal field has drawn criticism from Canada’s cannabis activists and businesses.

Jodie Emery, a cannabis legalization activist and human rights advocate, argued on Twitter that the new measures represent a continuing crackdown on private stores, noting that government-controlled supply is unlikely to meet the skyrocketing demand.

“I had 300 inquiries for @CannabisCulture franchises. An enormous supply is needed to feed enormous demand. Gov’t monopoly is doomed to fail,” Emery wrote on Twitter.

The Canadian Federation of Independent Businesses (CFIB) also slammed the new plan, arguing that contrary to its desired effect, it will spark a black market boom due to possible inadequate supply by the government.

“One of the government’s stated goals in cannabis legalization is to eliminate the underground economy, but shutting out the private sector will only allow the illicit trade to flourish,” CFIB said in a statement as cited by the Canadian media, saying that its members are “deeply disappointed” by the move.

The new scheme will come with some restrictions. Cannabis products will only be sold from behind the counter, as cigarettes, and not out in the open, while the minimum age for buying will be 19. Smoking will only be allowed at home, while buying cannabis online would mean ID checks, signatures on delivery and no unattended packages left at someone’s doorstep.

Pricing and tax decisions will be made after consultations with the federal government, although Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Liberal Party want to keep prices low to drive out the black market.

There were also those who voiced support for the plan, but with some reservations.

Camille Quenneville, CEO of the Canadian Mental Health Association, welcomed the government’s cannabis proposals but suggested that since the dispensaries are to be government-owned, all profits should be directed towards funding mental health care.

“We’ve recommended in a recent submission that all revenue should fund mental health and addictions services in Ontario because there is a correlation between cannabis consumption and mental health and addictions issues,” she said in a statement quoted by CBC.

Canada aims to legalize marijuana by mid-2018, making it the second country after Uruguay to do so on a national level. In July, the small South American country became the first in the world to put recreational pot on sale after first legalizing it in 2013, the interim four years taken up with questions on how to actually implement the legalization process.

The US wants more war because it means more profit and distracts from the social problems. The US tries to paint Pyongyang as the world’s enemy, however, we know who the true aggressor is, says international affairs commentator Daniel Shaw.

RT Op-Edge

The US wants more war because it means more profit and distracts from the social problems. The US tries to paint Pyongyang as the world’s enemy, however, we know who the true aggressor is, says international affairs commentator Daniel Shaw.

The US president has offered to help Middle East countries resolve the blockade of Qatar, a country which he branded a sponsor of terrorism just a few months ago when Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Bahrain and the UAE cut diplomatic and transport links with the Gulf nation.

The US maintains a significant military presence in Qatar with the biggest air base in the region; around 11,000 American troops are stationed there. Just weeks after welcoming the blockade, President Trump approved a fighter jet deal with Qatar worth $12 billion.

RT talked to the international affairs commentator Daniel Shaw and explains the US always puts its military interests first.

RT: What do you make of the latest statement from President Trump? Is he trying to de-escalate the situation?

Daniel Shaw: The US has done nothing to de-escalate the situation; they’ve always intensified and escalated the situation. If the US were serious about peace in the Pacific, they would immediately withdraw 50,000 troops from Japan, 30,000 troops from South Korea, and the 4,000 troops they have in Guam. All of these war exercises are provocations the South Korean government and the US military run together. This has really put North Korea on the defensive despite everything the US media says about North Korea being the aggressor. We know who the true aggressor in the Pacific is.

RT: In the very same speech, criticizing North Korea, the US leader mentioned Kuwait’s purchase of new American fighter jets. Is it just coincidence or is he trying to tout US military power?

DS: The US is always trying to tout their military power and use it to intimidate anybody in the world expecting any sovereign country to cow before US military might and constantly trading in arms with Kuwait and Saudi Arabia and Qatar. These are some of the most unequal, violent societies in the entire world. So, we see, as always the hypocritical nature of the US military. What North Korea has said is “what is good for the goose is good for the gander.” If you all can stockpile weapons and try to intimidate us and surround us, then we are going to come out fighting and defend ourselves. You have backed us into a corner, and we are going to act like a panther because you have given us no other choice.

RT: The North Korean ambassador to Russia said the US is disrupting international efforts to resolve the crisis. Does he have a point, considering Washington rejected a dialogue plan from Russia and China?

DS: The North Koreans, the South Koreans, the peoples of the world want dialogue and negotiations. The US media is also chiefly to blame: CNN, MSNBC, the entire gamut of mainstream networks is constantly painting North Korea as the aggressor and every day in this country people wake up to the news that we could potentially face a nuclear holocaust. But who has Pyongyang ever attacked? The US has always been the aggressor. So, yes, we should blame the US because Russia, China and South Korea itself have tried to play a mediating role. But it is very clear what the US wants – they want more war, war means more profits, it means a distraction. They can point the finger away from all the social problems – with white supremacy, and racism and fascism – and try to paint Pyongyang as the world’s enemy.

The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RT.

It’ s always about oil, isn’t? This is plain attempted theft, thuggery of the worse kind:

“…the whole Syrian war may once again be a war fought over natural resources. The proposed natural gas pipeline from Qatar to Turkey was reportedly rejected by Assad who preferred to support Russia’s financial interests of providing natural gas to Europe, over its own interests in allowing the pipeline to cross its territory.

Israel bombed the Syrian Army — the ones who’ve been defeating ISIS — and killed their soldiers. Whose side are they on?

Israel has officially admitted striking targets inside Syria on Thursday. For the first time since the conflict began, the State of Israel has targeted Syria with air strikes. The attack came just as the Syrian government declared a major victory against ISIS.

Israeli Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman, in a radio interview, reportedly said of the attack, “We will do everything to prevent the existence of a Shiite corridor from Iran to Damascus,” adding [Israel isn’t], “looking for adventures, and we don’t want to be dragged into this fight or another.” Furthermore, Lieberman said, “We are determined to prevent our enemies from harming or even creating the possibility of harming the security of Israeli citizens.”

According to ABC News, “Thursday’s air raid was seen as a message to both Russia and Iran that Israel can strike anywhere in Syria. It was also a rare instance of Israel striking a Syrian government facility rather than an arms shipment and harked back to an Israeli airstrike that destroyed a suspected, partially constructed nuclear reactor in the eastern city of Deir el-Zour exactly 10 years ago.”

The factory was reportedly being used by Hezbollah to create surface to surface missiles, presumably the same type used to reign terror into Israel in 2006. “Yaakov Amidror, Israel’s former national security adviser and a former general, said the strike targeted a weapons development and manufacturing site that was producing arms for Hezbollah,” wrote ABC News adding, “Former Israeli military intelligence chief Amos Yadlin wrote on Twitter that the facility produces precision missiles, chemical weapons and barrel bombs.”

Syria disputes those assertions and called on the United Nations Security Council to condemn Israel’s attack on Syria. They claim it wasn’t Hezbollah who was killed but two of their own soldiers. “At 02:42 a.m. on Thursday September, 7th, 2017 , the Israeli warplanes targeted one of the Syrian military positions near Misyaf in Hama province with several missiles, killing two army personnel and causing material damage to the site,” according to a letter addressed to the UN Secretary General written by Syria’s Foreign and Expatriates Ministry.

The Ministry added that the new Israeli attack aims at raising the morale of its agents represented by the terrorist groups which are carrying out its aggressive agenda

The state-run news agency also claims the air missile attacks were carried out:

in response to the great achievements made by the Syrian Arab army and its allies in their war against terrorism, the last of which is breaking the 3-year ISIS siege of Deir Ezzor city.

SANA also claims it isn’t the first time Israel has attacked them and blames the UN and Israel’s allies of supporting global terrorism:

The repeated Israeli attacks have become systematic behavior with the aim of protecting Jabhat al-Nusra and ISIS terrorists, said the ministry, noting that it is unacceptable that the UNSC has not taken decisive measures to put an end to such flagrant attacks. It concluded that any attack against the Syrian Arab army forms a direct support to terrorism, taking into account that the Syrian Arab army is fighting terrorism on behalf of the entire world. The Ministry called upon the UNSC and countries which have an influence on the Israeli entity to immediately condemn those attacks and halt them in order to defend security and stability and protect the lives of people all around the world.

Ironically, a Geo-political analyst who goes by the name Partisangirl on Twitter, predicted the attack on Syria by Israel one week ago. She tweeted her prediction and a link to her previous assertion Israel would use a false flag event (April gassing in this case) to launch an attack into Syria.

Hezbollah, one of Israel’s mortal enemies, has been fighting with the Assad regime to drive back the Islamic State and opposition fighters who had taken control of large swaths of the country in its 7-year war with extremists. Those extremists are considered terrorists by Assad and his government, yet counted as freedom fighters by the U.S. government who supports them.

We know the U.S. government supports terrorists because two of the nation’s congressmen attempted to halt the government’s military agenda in Syria by introducing legislation which could have put a stop to funding of financial and material support to extremist groups. Tulsi Gabbard (D-HI) and Rand Paul (R-KY) both introduced legislation to Congress in March called the “Stop Arming Terrorists Act,” a measure which quickly aroused the suspicions of those who’ve maintained all along the U.S. was fighting a proxy war using terrorists against Assad.

Thursday’s attack on Syria came amid Israel’s largest military drill in twenty years, according to Al Jazeera. The 10-day drill which started earlier in the week is being held along Lebanon’s border, the same area where the 2006 Hezbollah war took place. The attack on Syria and the massive military exercises along Lebanon’s border has led many to question if there will be an all out war between Hezbollah and Israel. Kassem Kassir, a Lebanon-based journalist with close ties to Hezbollah, told Al Jazeera:

Based on the information that we have, I think it is improbable that a war would break out, even though there have been several limited attacks by both parties. However, Israel could surprise us with war in the moment we least expect it.

Putting it all into perspective, Assad is working with the Russians, Iranians, and Hezbollah (Lebanese-based fighters) to secure and restore his once prosperous country to manageable levels of peace, security and stability. They’re all fighting Islamic State, and other U.S. backed opposition groups identified by the United States as “moderate rebels.” The Syrian government appears to now be winning the war and turning the tide against the Islamic State. Just this week, government forces broke through the the 3-year-long siege of Deir Ezzor, a major city in Syria’s Eastern province.

The besieged Brigade 137 airbase was liberated, along with its soldiers, and reunited with fellow comrades who brought 1,000 tons of food, medicine, and educational materials with them for the 70,000 residents who were being held hostage by ISIS. According to the Independent, ISIS is so desperate to replace their human losses they’re calling on women to step up and become front-line fighters.

As TFTP reported, the whole Syrian war may once again be a war fought over natural resources. The proposed natural gas pipeline from Qatar to Turkey was reportedly rejected by Assad who prefered to support Russia’s financial interests of providing natural gas to Europe, over its own interests in allowing the pipeline to cross its territory.

One of the world’s leading scientists has made a shocking confession on live TV when he accidentally admitted that the recent “man-made” hurricanes have been artificially created through secret government weather modification.

During an interview on mainstream media outlet CBS news, Physicist Dr. Michio Kaku said that the skies have been sprayed with nano particles and storms are then “activated” using “lasers”.

SCROLL DOWN FOR VIDEO

Geoengineering isn’t a new idea though, and government-funded programs such as the High-Frequencyency Active Auroral Research Program (HAARP) was created in the early 1990s and was an ionospheric research program jointly funded by the U.S.

Air Force, the U.S. Navy, the University of Alaska Fairbanks, and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). HAARP was capable of “weaponizing” the weather and has the ability of potentially triggering floods, droughts, hurricanes, and earthquakes.

Throughout the life of the program, it had incurred around $250 million in tax-funded construction and operating costs.

Anonymous reports: People in positions of influence propose that the skies be sprayed to “combat climate change,” but they never exactly admit it is already happening: in this little-known slip-up, a mainstream scientist admitted it.

In the interview, Michio Kaku briefly dips into the history of weather modification (in little detail compared to extensive works, such as the book “Chemtrails Exposed: a New Manhattan Project”).

Very quickly, the CBS crew interrupted him to say the state weather modification programs were only “alleged.”

That might even suggest the CBS staff was explicitly told never to approach that topic.

One detail in a plethora of academic papers and patents about altering the weather with electromagnetic energy and conductive particles in the stratosphere, research published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences said the “laser beams” can create plasma channels in the air, causing ice to form.

According to Professor Wolf Kasparian: “Under the conditions of a typical storm cloud, in which ice and supercooled water coexist, no direct influence of the plasma channels on ice formation or precipitation processes could be detected.

“Within a few minutes, the laser action led to a strong enhancement of the total ice particle number density in the chamber by up to a factor of 100, even though only a 10−9 fraction of the chamber volume was exposed to the plasma channels.

“The newly formed ice particles quickly reduced the water vapor pressure to ice saturation, thereby increasing the cloud optical thickness by up to three orders of magnitude.”

To really understand geoengineering, researchers have identified defense contractors Raytheon, BAE Systems, and corporations such as General Electric as being heavily involved with geoengineering.

September 7, 2017

My mini-vision of a couple of months ago of the date, 4 September, has proved to be prescient. It is clear now that these days in early September are a crucial watershed period for the USSA and possibly for the world, as the USSA undergoes trial by Hurricane(s) and appears to be poised on the brink of possible nuclear war with North Korea. Both Donald Trump and the USSA as a whole are under terrific stress right now — militarily, politically, economically, socially, meteorologically — at the individual and national level.

Here’s the reality: we are now to the point where there will be more and more changes, more and more problems and chaos. The world is changing and as we move deeper into the Event Horizon the pace of events will quicken, faster and faster, more and more.

Eventually the confusion may become completely overwhelming, or nearly so, and we may not even be in contact anymore.

As things break down, something new will emerge, perhaps with a more prosperous and peaceful, multi-polar world order as proposed by Vladimir Putin, with more of an emphasis on Asia and the Global South, but first it does look like much of the world will go through a time of turmoil, even violent turmoil in some countries — which already exists for people in Syria, Somalia, Libya, Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen, and other places.

Karmically and politically that turmoil has also already begun in the USSA. It will get worse and worse, maybe a very great deal worse. It looks like there may very well be a years-long period of pronounced decline and chaos in the USSA dominated global system of governance. Indeed, the USSA itself may break up and splinter into pieces, much as the former Soviet Union did more than 25 years ago.

The trial by hurricane(s) that the USSA is now undergoing is like the pounding that a heavyweight boxer undergoes when he absorbs a withering series of powerful body blows in a 15-round slug fest. The damaging body blows have a cumulative effect that after a given point can bring even the most powerful of men crashing down to defeat.

Have no doubt, what has just happened in Houston is a powerful body blow for the USSA system. Houston, and the surrounding area of the Gulf Coast, is a vital component of the industrial and economic might of the USSA, as a crucial petrochemical, petroleum refining and commercial shipping center, and nerve center of the global, petroleum business.

But Houston, and the surrounding region, have been trashed due to the ravages of Hurricane Harvey and its heavy flooding aftermath. Houston may never again be the city that we have known it to be during the second half of the 20th century and the opening years of the 21st century. I used to clean windows for some wealthy clients in the oil business, who had a big, two-storey, rambling house with lots of windows in one of those upscale neighborhoods down along Buffalo Bayou on the west side of town. I imagine their big, expensive house sustained a lot of water damage and may not even be habitable at this point, assuming they will want to live there anymore.

A Texas friend writes in to say:

Houston has been destroyed. They may save the tall civic center buildings but the city itself is lost. All our cities are built upon a structure: the very poor live in the worst parts of the city, getting by through whatever means they can–selling drugs, selling labor, stealing, etc. By the time you get to someone who can actually rent a room you are several levels above the real slums. All that housing and the small businesses that served those people are gone now.
Considering the condition of the ground, it will be a long time before it dries out enough to build there. Frame structures that are flooded can’t be saved; they are infected with molds, viruses and industrial pollutants. Developers can get properties for pennies; they will have a field day, at the expense of the former owners.
Got insurance? You will have to sue to collect.

But just wait…

Hurricane Irma arrives in South Florida in the coming days and bids fair to be a repeat of Harvey, and maybe even worse.

It looks like the southeast coastline, from South Florida all the way up to South Carolina, will be ravaged within the next week, with very extensive property damage and displacement of the coastal population.

I used to live, once upon a time, in a tiny little house beneath towering, stately, pecan trees, right along the very edge of a large salt marsh in rural, coastal Georgia. At low tide I could walk barefoot for miles in the tidal flats, through an endless labyrinth of tidal creeks running through a seemingly never-ending expanse of marsh grass that extended nearly to the horizon, with the mud squishing through my toes, watching the marsh hens in their deliberate stalking of their prey, and setting a crab trap or two, which might even have caught the occasional fish along with a few crabs. All of that is likely to be overwhelmed by a furious 20 foot storm surge in three or four days from now. That tranquil little house under the ancient pecan trees down by the sea, will probably be destroyed and those huge, old pecan trees may be uprooted and washed away, as well.

And not only those trees and that little house, but also much of the little town where those trees and that little house stand. It is, all of it, barely 5 feet above sea level, if that, and the projected storm surge is as much as 20 feet and maybe even more.

Beyond that, there is the USSA Naval Submarine Base at Kings Bay, Georgia, the USSA Navy Aircraft Carrier Base at Mayport, Florida and the Cape Canaveral Space Port at Cocoa Beach, Florida. All of these facilities are immediately on the coast, mere feet above sea level, and highly vulnerable to the high winds and high storm surge that Irma is imminently going to inflict on that region.

Then there are the miles of high rise condominiums and hotels, banks and other skyscrapers in Miami, that are built right along the beach, right down along the seashore. What happens when those twenty and thirty and forty story buildings take 10 or 15 feet of storm surge, and 150 mph winds?

We’ll soon find out.

But that’s not all.

The USSA Deep State Is Gearing Up To Attack North Korea

The war drums against North Korea are beating louder and louder, week after week. While I realize perfectly well that many people say that the prospect of a shooting nuclear war is too insane to contemplate, that such a ghastly eventuality could never occur, that cooler heads will prevail, that not even the War Hawks in the Pentagon could actually be so demented as to wage such a destructive, genocidal war, the hard reality is that over the last 70 years, the military-industrial-intelligence complex of the USSA has made extensive, multi-trillion dollar preparations to fight and *win* just such a nuclear conflict.

That is the harsh truth of the matter. Whether or not you think that is a good idea, whether or not you approve of such a plan and preparations — none of that matters to them. Their priorities are not necessarily your priorities. For you, nuclear mushroom clouds are probably a really, really bad thing; for them, nuclear mushroom clouds are but a means to an end — domination of the planet by them on their terms They intend to engineer the enormous death and destruction in a manner that results in their political, military, economic and social control of the entire planet, or so they think.

Accordingly, in recent days, Donald Trump has proposed cutting off trade with all countries that engage in trade with North Korea, including China. Now, China and the USSA have bilateral trade that runs to $600 billion or more per year, so a cut-off of trade with China would be a crippling blow for the Chinese economy and also the economy of the USSA. In fact, a policy that stupid would end up harming China and the USSA far more than North Korea. Even worse, it might lead to a shooting war between the USSA and China.

Not surprisingly, the Chinese can see that geopolitical events in northeast Asia are rapidly spiraling in an ugly direction and have just staged a defensive military drill in the region near North Korea. The Chinese understand that the USSA has a more than century-long history of repeated, highly destructive military interventions and wars in Asia — in the Philippines, against Japan, in Korea, in Indo-China — and are overtly signalling that if they are threatened, that they will militarily defend Chinese territory and interests.

Essentially, the USSA is now in real deep kimchi, if you catch my drift. My personal analysis is that if the stand off with North Korea goes to a shooting war, in the end it will not go well for the USSA, not even if it initially appears that the USSA is prevailing or has prevailed militarily. I don’t believe at all that the Pentagon can deliver a knock-out punch to North Korea’s political leadership, its military, its command and control structure and its industrial base without unleashing a broader war that will inevitably blow back to the USSA mainland itself, with disastrous effect. To wit: what if the North Koreans do manage to explode an A-bomb, or two or three, on cities in the USSA, as they have said they can do? Or pop off an EMP weapon over the mainland of the USSA that plays havoc with the national electrical grid and electronic and digital infrastructure, with deleterious consequences for the national economy and industrial base?

Nevertheless, it does seem that the USSA really intends to attack North Korea, no matter what, and the North Koreans understand that. I think that the North Koreans will fight back, very fiercely, if they are attacked by Pentagon forces. They have watched what the USSA and “friends” have done to Yemen, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Vietnam, Afghanistan, etc. They remember very well the millions that the USSA slaughtered in Korea in the 1950s. They remember what the USSA and friends did to Muammar Ghaddafi and Saddam Hussein. I do not believe that Kim Jong-un intends to be sodomized to death with a bayonet up the butt like Muammar Ghaddafi, or to hang by the neck like Saddam Hussein after a rigged, political show trial.

The North Koreans have determined that they will not permit that to happen in North Korea. I understand their point of view. There is a viciously genocidal rogue state in this equation and it is the USSA, far more so than North Korea, which has invaded no other country in the time that the USSA has rampaged all over the planet, attacking, bombing and invading country after country after country.

So which country is the out of control, rogue state that most threatens international stability?

That said, the evidence suggests that the North Koreans do have, at the least, a boosted yield A-bomb, with a yield perhaps of up to 150 kilotons. They may have ten or twenty of them, for all I know. If they’re attacked, they will certainly use them, or try to. They may already have fitted them to their intermediate range and intercontinental ballistic missiles. They may already have a couple of submarines at sea with these missiles, silently drifting with the current, with a skeleton crew, awaiting launch orders from Pyongyang. I mean, who knows?

The North Koreans may even have their own, rudimentary Dead Man’s Switch, such that if Pyongyang is destroyed or the North Korean national leadership is decapitated the submarine commanders and other missile commanders have orders to fire immediately and at will.

I rule nothing out.

I don’t even rule out possible nuclear false flag attacks by the USSA Deep State against cities and targets in the mainland USSA, so that the Pentagon and the Deep State can falsely blame the North Koreans and get their eagerly desired nuclear war on. Of course it will be a total, red-white-and-blue Hell, if they do that, but did that stop them from attacking the Pentagon itself on 9/11, and the World Trade Center Towers in New York City? On the contrary, killing thousands or even millions of people is what they do, what they have done repeatedly in the past, and what all the publicly available evidence suggests they are now preparing to do again, maybe even yet this week, for all anyone knows.

Were I USSA President I would offer North Korea a genuine peace treaty with an international guarantee of their national borders being secure, thereby finally putting a definitive legal end to the Korean War, and engage them in trade and direct diplomatic negotiations. But then, in the political world as it is, men who think as I do cannot come to power in the USSA, because the business of the USSA is war. Men like me are jailed by the Feds and I have been jailed and imprisoned by the Feds, multiple times, for my nonviolent, always peaceful, anti-nuclear protests, so I am writing you these words from South America, where I intend to remain, as the Northern Empire goes through its violent, psychopathic, demonic, insane death throes.

I know what the political rhetoric is, but the reality is that it is the USSA that is primarily responsible for having brought the Korean situation to the crisis point. However crazy the men in Pyongyang may be, at least history explains and even largely justifies their profound mistrust of the USSA and its policies, whereas the crazies in Washington, DC are simply demonically, insanely, psychopathically barking mad, beyond all hope of redemption or correction, and beyond all rational understanding.

We’ll see what the coming days bring, as the USSA drifts deeper into serial disasters, largely of its own contrivance.

Will it inflict a hideous nuclear war on itself?

Or will it go down by cascading failure of its infrastructure, as its large cities sequentially self-destruct due to natural disasters, political, economic and social chaos, and a growing, destitute, homeless, unemployed, refugee population?

Or both at the same time?

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As Portuguese authorities are struggling to pacify residents alarmed by terror threat rumors, a security expert explains to Sputnik why the country bordering Spain, which has suffered a terrible attack this summer, could become a new target.

Reports about a possible large-scale terrorist attack in Portugal continue to circulate in social networks, including Facebook.

In a bid to allay these concerns, Portuguese Prime Minister Antonio Costa referred to the latest intelligence reports, which he said revealed that it is unnecessary to change the current “moderate” terrorist threat level in his country.

“[Terrorism] is a global threat that can emerge everywhere. And, of course, our services should analyze and check all the information that appears,” Costa said.

He was echoed by Rui Pereira, former director of the Portuguese Intelligence and Secret Service (SIS) agency, who warned in an exclusive interview with Sputnik Brazil that Portugal may face a terror threat in the near future.He said that “obviously, Portugal can become a target for terrorist attacks, especially because, as an EU and NATO member, the country remains within the [reach] of Islamic radical terror,” Pereira said.

“Secondly, Portugal is [seen by terrorists as] part of their self-proclaimed caliphate and thirdly, Portugal may face a terror threat due to the reasons that are briefly described by the word ‘globalization’ which enables jihadists to stage a terrorist attack in the streets of Lisbon, Porto or Algarve against citizens of any country in the world,” he added.

According to Pereira, the site of a terrorist attack is not that important because “television channels across the world will show this attack and its effect will extend far beyond the place in which it was conducted,” Pereira pointed out.

At the same time, he admitted that the threat of a terrorist attack in Portugal is not as serious as it may be within Europe’s larger countries.

“Experience shows that in Portugal there is not such a level of danger as in Spain, France or Britain, where communities with more radical Islamic elements are currently in place,” Pereira said.

He recalled that “our communities [of migrants] are traditionally more peaceful” and that they are not leaning on terrorism. Even so, he warned that “this situation may change,” first of all due to the fact that all those radical elements who left Portugal to join Daesh (ISIS) may return home.

“In the context of the fact that the self-proclaimed caliphate in Syria and Iraq is shrinking in size, many of these elements will return to their countries and may want to arrange terrorist attacks there. Although the number of Portuguese fighting in the Daesh ranks does not reportedly exceed a dozen and some may have perished, this danger always exists,” Pereira said.

He added that “this peril increases due to the fact that we are in a zone of free movement which allows the perpetrator to quickly move to another country.”

According to Pereira, the fact that Portuguese authorities did not raise the terrorist threat level does not mean that additional measures are not being taken.

“To move from a moderate to a considerable terrorist threat level, we need visible signs that a terrorist attack could be staged in Portugal. The invariability of the threat level does not indicate the authorities’ reluctance to take anti-terror steps, such as those that have already been adopted in order to prevent a repeat of the attack, in line with the Barcelona scenario,” he concluded.

On August 18 and 19, Catalonia’s cities of Barcelona and Cambrils faced van ramming attacks. A total of 16 people were killed and over 130 injured in the tragic incidents, which have been treated by the authorities as terror attacks. The terrorist group Daesh claimed responsibility for the Barcelona attack.According to Catalonia’s police force, a 12-person cell was behind the slaughter. Four suspects have been arrested and five others were killed after the Cambrils attack.

Two more attackers allegedly died in an explosion in the Catalan town of Alcanar, where the terrorists had been preparing explosives. Last week, police confirmed they had killed Younes Abouyaaquob, the suspected perpetrator of the terrorist attack.

Thebriefhoneymoonbetween Washington and Beijing appearstobeover. Just months ago, President Donald Trump would say warm words to his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping during their meeting in Florida. Now, the two sides have a hard time describing their disagreements.

It’s been noted that in that in mid-July Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross would complain about the trade gap with China in unusually blunt terms. This event was followed by a statement made by a CIA senior analyst Michael Collin who would announce that China’s growing confidence and resolve fueled by Washington’s inaction against Beijing over the past several years, has become a major concern in Washington. He also remains convinced that China poses a greater threat to the US than Russia.

From the CIA’s point of view, «China is undermining the US-led international order that has brought peace and stability in Asia over the past 40 years. Beijing is seeking to usurp American power and influence in the region».

In turn, CIA’s Director Mike Pompeo announced his belief that China has the capacity to present greater rivalry to America than Iran or Russia over the medium and long term. To make the ratter peculiar situation worse a US admiral has recently shocked the world by stating that he would launch a nuclear strike on China if Trump is to order it.

Against this background, the reports appearing featured by a number of media sources about Washington impending sanctions against China do not look surprising at all.

Trump’s advisers are still unable to formulate measures they are going to introduce against China due to the complicated situation around the DPRK, notes Politico, while citing two officials in the Trump administration. However, the stated measures are supposed to “punish” China for its rapid development. Among the measures under consideration, according to the above mentioned report, there are trade restrictions, along with economic sanctions. It’s safe to assume that protective duties would be introduced at some point against certain products that are being imported from China, but it’s a tough guess what areas of China’s economy Washington is going to choose. It’s also possible that Washington would put a hold on China’s transactions across the US, thus burring joint economic programs that Beijing created with a number of American companies.

Trump noted on Twitter that he’s “very disappointed in China,” adding that “(America’s) foolish past leaders have allowed them to make hundreds of billions of dollars a year in trade.”

It’s been noted by David Loevinger, managing director of emerging markets sovereign research at TCW Group Inc in his interview for Bloomberg that “in some ways the Teddy Roosevelt strategy of talking softly and carrying a big stick is effective with China.”

China’s response to all of the above mentioned developments was announced by China’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Qian, who would announce that Beijing won’t intervene in the affairs of other state but at the same time it won’t tolerate any attempts to intimidate it or inflict damage to its national interests.

At the same time, China, just like Russia, has a number of aces up its sleeve when economic retaliation is concerned. Today, all economies are so closely tied together that China has a large pool of measures with which it can respond. Among them one can find the reduction of the number of US diplomatic mission employers being allowed to operate in a foreign state, such a measure has already been skillfully introduced by Russia. In addition, the activities of some American companies in China, like Coca-Cola and McDonald’s can be severely restricted. Additionally China can stop supplying the US with a number of goods that remain vital to its economy or force Washington to leave Asian markets, which can result in a pretty severe economic blow to the US economy.

Strangely enough, China, just like Russia, would only benefit from the introduction of American sanctions against it. Beijing has been gradually developing anti-American propaganda capabilities, and it wants to show both to its citizens and its partners in the One Road One Belt project, that the United States is an unreliable partner, that is unable to conduct negotiations that is why it would only be using ill-conceived through measures. One find a lot of friends across the globe these days by advancing this rhetorics and Washington can only blame itself for that.

Grete Mautner is an independent researcher and journalist from Germany, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook.”